Rosie dances some spark into slow-mo 'Nanette'

BY LINDA WINER | linda.winer@newsday.com

11:20 AM EDT, May 9, 2008

Rosie O'Donnell and Sandy Duncan tap dancing in "No, No, Nanette" an Encores! concert revival of the tap dancing musical comedy which had its Broadway premiere in 1925. City Center, W. 55 St., NYC. (ARI MINTZ, Newsday / May 8, 2008)

It's possible to feel nostalgic for the nostalgia that gripped Broadway in 1971 -- when a revived and revised version of the 1925 "No, No, Nanette" offered tap-happy escape from Vietnam, "Oh, Calcutta!" and edgy new musicals by a young Stephen Sondheim.

Less possible is the likelihood that the show will make old history new again. Encores!, that invaluable series of semi-staged revivals, has provided a gracious, affectionate, almost shockingly sedate production of the piece in which charming rich people sing "I Want to Be Happy" and "Tea for Two."

When the most fun involves Rosie O'Donnell, as the second-banana wisecracking maid, doing a few minutes of sweetly capable tap at the end, clearly, there is too much air where the sparks should be.

That's not entirely true. Beth Leavel (who won a Tony Award for "The Drowsy Chaperone") temporarily lights a stick of dynamite in her sultry, sophisticated delivery of "The 'Where-Has-My-Hubby-Gone' Blues."

But mostly, this is a so-so-"Nanette." Director Walter Bobbie ("Chicago") and choreographer Randy Skinner ("42nd Street") play the style straight and white-bread square. This turns out to be more admirable than essential.

Sandy Duncan is capable and perky as the goody-goody society wife (the Ruby Keeler part) who tries to protect her niece (the nicely plucky Mara Davi) from adventure. Charles Kimbrough (barely challenged but nicely rumpled) plays the husband, a wealthy Bible manufacturer. He likes to help voluptuous young women study art and is being pursued by three colorful bimbos (three being the comic number for bimbos on Broadway these days). Michael Berresse is a smooth hoofer as the "hubby-gone-blues" lawyer who tries to pay them off and Shonn Wiley is his assistant and Nanette's persistent suitor.

For reasons too trivial to mention, everyone ends up in Atlantic City, where the dancing chorus gets the audience to twitter at "What a day to be gay in the ocean." Rob Fisher's orchestra, as always, is lush. The background sets are mauve and polite. Rosie, except for her game tapping, has some lame bits with the vacuum cleaner. She wears bows in her hair and pinafores over what appears to be black long underwear.

NO, NO, NANETTE. Music by Vincent Youmans. Encores! at New York City Center, 131 W. 55th St. through Sunday. Tickets: $25-95. Higher at benefit gala Monday. Phone: 212-581-1212.

Next up: "Damn Yankees," starring Sean Hayes and Jane Krakowski, July 5-27, in the slot filled last summer by Patti LuPone and "Gypsy."